At this time, the Master Chief was sitting upright in his chair in contemplation, his posture was standard like a sculpture, almost completely motionless. Only the slightly lowered head and the eyes that blink from time to time remind others that this is a living person.

Sergeant Johnson, who was sitting next to him, sat relaxed on the bench, crossed his legs, smoking a large cigar, and his eyes closed with a look of enjoyment, which was in stark contrast to the stiff contemplative posture of the Master Chief.

Cortana's chip was now on the arm of the chair between the two of them, and her hologram silently looked at the Master Chief who was meditating, and then at Sergeant Johnson. She seemed to want to say something to the two of them, but each time she stopped talking.

"Come on, John, don't keep a straight face. You should try this, the original Cuban cigar, I finally got it from logistics! After a moment of silence, Sergeant Johnson suddenly handed the Master Chief a new cigar, although he was well aware that Master Chief was a non-smoker.

"I don't need to! The Master Chief silently pushed the cigar over, and his tone was very stiff, almost word by word popping out of his mouth! Obviously, he was in a depressed mood. The reason is also very simple, he has just learned about the casualties on Zhiyuan.

The battle of Zhiyuanxing was going hard, this was something he had known for a long time, after all, he had participated in the ground battles in it. However, it wasn't until he saw the long list that he realized how brutal the battles were in other places he hadn't been, and even the Spartan warriors who had been packaged by the UNSC as an undefeated myth fell in droves.

As the leader of the Spartan warriors, he used the number search whenever he was given the opportunity, looking up the latest status of his companions in the number jù library. He knew that there would be casualties in such a large-scale ground melee, and the Spartan warriors would not be spared.

However, he had not expected such heavy casualties until he saw the list, and most of the Spartan warriors he knew appeared on this cold casualty list. Even those who are not on this list are mostly missing.

He was saddened by the number of Spartan soldiers killed and wounded in this battle than in the previous 20 years of the Covenant war combined. Because all these people are partners who grew up with him, they are his family.

"Don't do that, John, you need to cheer up! Cortana, who was on the side, saw Sergeant Johnson open the topic and hurriedly followed suit, she looked very eager. Because she had never seen a master chief so reticent.

Although little is known about Spartan warriors, it is generally believed that Spartan warriors are not good at words and closed-minded. But Cortana knew that Master Chief, like most Spartan soldiers, had a wealth of emotions, but was not used to opening up to strangers.

At this moment, the chief of the master is a typical way for Spartan soldiers to express their grief. Shut yourself off and ignore the outside world! Although she was quite sure that Master Chief would not be defeated by this bad news, seeing him so closed-minded, Cortana couldn't help but want to comfort him.

"I know this! Now both of you will pause for a moment. I need to be quiet for a moment......" Master Chief replied in a still heavy tone, apparently taking some time to take in the casualties.

It didn't take long for the door to the conference room to open and they were invited into the room. The master chief also tidied up his appearance before entering the door, so as not to affect the attitude of the command level towards him.

At this time, a large number of senior officers of the UNSC and some important figures from government agencies had already gathered in this small conference room, for the Master Chiefs. These people are not strangers, because they can often see these bigwigs through guò news information.

After walking into the conference room. Master Chiefs and the others first saluted the officers present, and then were invited to their seats for questioning. From the perspective of an onlooker, the scene in front of me is quite similar to the trial in the courthouse, where a group of people sit there very strictly, trying to restore the "truth" of something they do not understand.

Admiral Hood, who was seated in the chair, first confirmed the contents of the report of the Master Chief and Cortana face-to-face on behalf of everyone present, and mainly focused on the personnel of the space-time expedition they had contacted before. to confirm that this part of the report is not a falsified version of the report by someone else who handled it.

Admiral Hood, like everyone else in this room, was a little surprised to suddenly discover such a man-made miracle as the Ring, and that his own race was the heir of the Precursor, but the others were different compared to the sudden discovery that his race was the heir of the Precursor. Admiral Hood is clearly more concerned about this unknown new human force. If the wars of the past 20 years have taught them anything, it's that the renegade of human forces has always been more disgusting than the Covenant.

In contrast, the idea that humans are descendants of an ancient civilization is not particularly new. Although ONI has been trying to block the various ancient ruins found, the technical forces of UNSC have been unable to access and restore the technical data left in those ruins for a long time.

But at the top of the UNSC, the existence of ancient interstellar civilizations is no secret. It has long been speculated that the reason why the Covenant, a multiracial alliance, waged a war of extermination against humanity because of the old grievances of some ancient interstellar civilizations, and now, the latest discoveries have basically confirmed this.

"Are you sure that they are all humans, and is it possible that they have used some kind of advanced technology to hide their true faces?" After all, you just mentioned that the Ring Belt Guardian has been raised by the Qì people, and they are not like you! A senior government official in the conference room interrupted Cortana's description and asked.

Cortana had just talked about their first encounter with the expedition and how they were treated differently by 343 Sparks of Guilt in the Ring Control Room. Although Cortana clarified the distinction between ancient and modern humans based on the information obtained, and specifically proposed it in the narrative just now. But it is clear that not everyone in the audience is listening carefully to her description.

"I examined their physiology with audiovisual footage, and many of them had been in close contact with us. Through image analysis, they all have normal human heart rate, breathing, blood circulation...... "Cortana showed her technical side, and explained a large number of video data along with technical numbers.

As early as the first encounter on the ring, she began to examine the faces of the expedition members, using a technical analysis method to enlarge and subdivide the images, and she only relied on the slight changes in the facial skin color of the expedition members to restore their heart rate, respiratory rate and even the direction of the facial microvessels.

A person's face can be faked in a very light way, but this information shows that the other person is a living human being, with different physical characteristics. It can't be impersonated by some other race in human skin.

"Can we be sure they're not some other colonial power that has lost contact?" More importantly, are they hostile? Admiral Hood asked. He believed Cortana's arguments, but he was more concerned about whether the expedition that appeared out of thin air was a new security threat.

"No, Admiral. They are definitely not from other colonies, and their weaponry technology is far superior to ours and even surpasses the Covenant in many ways! As for whether they were hostile or not, we can't be entirely sure, but on the belt, they helped a lot......" Cortana thought about it and said two good words about the expedition.

As she spoke, she also showed the video of Master Chief using the Cain Cannon on the big screen. When the group of bigwigs in front of them saw that a small hand-held weapon on the screen could cause damage like a small nuclear bomb, everyone was a little uneasy.

The reason why the UNSC's army is not a match for the Star Alliance is largely because of its backward weapons. Over the years, UNSC has also carried out the research and development of Duolun's weapons and equipment, mobilizing its strongest technical force to try to shorten the weapon generation gap with the Star Alliance, but they have not been able to achieve satisfactory results.

Although they have successfully developed some new weapons that look good in the real room, the shortcomings of the technical type have prevented them from overcoming some problems such as battery capacity, weapon life, and production technology, and the new weapons developed have always been unable to be installed in large quantities.

However, the video shown by Kotana shows a large number of standard individual weapons, each of which is much more powerful than the same tactical type weapons that the UNSC currently has, indicating that the opponent's industrial capabilities are far greater than the current level of the UNSC.

Although there are many colonies that have lost contact with each other over the years, and some of them are quite large-scale, even if they are all combined, it is impossible to have the ability to form an industrial system larger than the existing industrial chain of the UNSC, and naturally it is impossible to produce these advanced weapons.

After confirming the other important information in the report one by one, Admiral Hood asked about the progress of the technical data they had brought back, and with the pressure of war on the Covenant ahead, they were naturally eager to gain any possible advantage.

However, Cortana's answer to this question was quite disappointing, although the UNSC's technical institutions were much larger than the Space-Time Council, but like the Space-Time Council, their technicians also found that most of the "useful" technological achievements were completely unattainable with current technical means after declassifying the information. The few technologies that can be realized are basically unrelated to war, and it seems unlikely that the Covenant will achieve any major technological breakthrough before it reaches Earth.

After learning this, the atmosphere of the interrogation meeting cooled down, and the meeting broke up after half an hour, and the Master Chief thought that he would be transferred back to ONI to standby, but before he could take a few steps out of the conference room, he was stopped by Admiral Hood and taken back to his office. (To be continued......)

PS:First of all, thank you for the "Jing Shiyan" who voted for the monthly ticket so far today and the generous reward of "*ndy1997....",The next chapter update is expected to be after the early morning.,Let's see it tomorrow morning.